Klarinet Archive - Posting 000136.txt from 1998/08

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Copying = Stealing
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 11:48:27 -0400

You may well be right, legally, but I don't have any moral problem with
what I do.
On one occasion when we actually played a work by a living composer -
and he
came to rehearse, even, a couple of times, I had written out both clarinet
parts for one section for A clarinet rather than B flat, because of their
extreme difficulty; it turned that he'd written it for B flat more or less
out of habit.... I put the rewritten parts in with the official parts when
we returned them to him. Generally, I throw what I've rewritten away
- unless I'm expecting
to play the same work again with the same orchestra in the foreseeable
future.
Roger Shilcock

On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Mark Charette wrote:

> Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 08:52:08 -0400
> From: Mark Charette <charette@-----.org>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet <klarinet@-----.org>
> Subject: Re: [kl] Copying = Stealing
>
> From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
> To: 'klarinet@-----.org>
> Date: Tuesday, August 04, 1998 07:41
> Subject: Re: [kl] Copying = Stealing
>
>
> >I seem to remember "de minimis non curat lex". Personally, if I get a part
> >to play at a concert which is illegible or otherwise unusable, I do my
> >best to make a playable version of it. Isn't this actually doing the
> >composer a good turn? It's also doing work the publisher was too bloody
> >lazy to do, and in the unlikely event that I ever got prosecuted for this,
> >I would say so in court - and elsewhere, as loudly as possible.
>
>
> You may rationalize all you want, but it is still patently illegal and you
> will lose in court, especially since the UK is a member of the International
> Copyright agreement (modifications to the copyright law would have to be
> agreed to by numerous countries!). You have complete legal authority to mark
> up your purchased copy of an illegible (or legible) part. If in fact the
> part you received was a rental part that had been marked up & erased so many
> times that it's in bad shape you have every reason to raise bloody hell with
> the rental corporation, demand a rental fee be returned, etc. - there's
> _plenty_ of legal precedent here for non-delivery of contracted goods - but
> you have no right to copy it, rationalizations notwithstanding. You also
> have the right to return a piece of music that has blatant errors or bad
> printing as long as it is in salable condition (at least in the US) for the
> purchase price.
>
> Doing the composer a good turn (for a living composer) would be to notify
> the composer that the music was useless as printed. The composer may have
> the authority to switch to a different publishing house (depending on the
> contract that they have).
>
> All the wishing in the world won't change the copyright laws. Not obeying
> the law is like cheating a bit on a government imposed tax that you disagree
> with - they may not catch you, but if they do you'll pay significant
> penalty.
> ----
> Mark Charette@-----.org
> Webmaster, http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet
> All-around good guy and devil-may-care flying fool.
> "There can be no freedom without discipline." - Nadia Boulanger
>
>
>
>
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